46 Facts About Andrea Doria

From 1528 until his death, Doria exercised a predominant influence in the councils of the Genoese republic, and was considered the foremost naval leader in Europe at his time.

Andrea Doria became Holy Roman Emperor Charles V's grand admiral, a position he employed both to protect Genoa's independence and to maintain his own control over the city.

Andrea Doria acted as a privateer with the ships he owned in order to increase his wealth.

Andrea Doria's fleet helped secure the imperial naval lines between Spain and Italy, although he had a mixed success against the eminent threat of the Ottoman navy.

Andrea Doria's reformed constitution of the Republic of Genoa would last until the end of the republic in 1797.

Andrea Doria's parents were related: Ceva Doria, co-lord of Oneglia, and Caracosa Doria, of the Doria di Dolceacqua branch.

Andrea Doria soon gained enough renown for Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba, the age's premier general, to tempt him to join him.

Andrea Doria scoured the Mediterranean in command of the Genoese fleet, waging war on the Turks and the Barbary pirates.

Andrea Doria focused in his actions against Muslims, defeated another Turk fleet led by Caid Ali or Cadolin in at Pianosa in 1519, capturing his ships for his own fleet.

In 1522, during the Italian War between France and the empire of Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, Genoa was conquered and sacked by imperial troops under the command of Prospero Colonna and Fernando d'Avalos, forcing Andrea Doria to escape with the fleet again.

Andrea Doria prepared a plan to try to rescue him, but Francis ordered him to refrain.

Andrea Doria then clashed with Francis' regent, Anne de Montmorency, and abandoned French service, forming a naval mercenary fleet.

However, he ended up siding with France again when Pope Clement VIII formed the League of Cognac to oppose Charles V, for which Andrea Doria was hired to command their armada while Giovanni delle Bande Nere did the same in their land army.

Andrea Doria defeated a bigger Spanish fleet in Corsica and planned to conquer Genoa, still under imperial rule, but it was never carried on.

However, Andrea became dissatisfied with his treatment at the hands of Francis, who was mean about payment and replaced Doria for the French admiral Antoine de La Rochefoucauld.

Andrea Doria found Doria an invaluable ally in the wars with Francis I, and through him extended his domination over the whole of Italy.

Andrea Doria continued to serve the emperor in various wars, in which he was generally successful and always active.

Andrea Doria reformed the constitution in an aristocratic sense, eliminating the factions that had plagued the republic in the past centuries, and constituted a new oligarchic form of government composed of the city's principal aristocratic families, creating 28 Alberghi or "clans".

Andrea Doria refused offers to take the lordship of Genoa and even the dogeship, but accepted the position of "perpetual censor", and exercised predominant influence in the councils of the republic until his death.

Andrea Doria established himself in his newly-renovated villa in Fassolo, a Renaissance masterpiece known as Villa del Principe, in an area just outside the now demolished Porta di San Tomaso, where he resided until his death.

The raid went awry by the inexperience of Andrea Doria's freshly recruited troops, many of them French, who disbanded to sack the place and were abandoned to their luck, possibly by Barbarossa being near, but the operation succeeded in capturing a large part of the corsair's fleet in port and thwarting the campaign against Cadiz.

Andrea Doria headed to Morea, capturing Corone by way of a novel system of cannons and ladders in his masts to assault the coastal bulwark.

Andrea Doria followed by taking and sacking Patras, destroying fortresses around the Gulf of Corinth, and reached to the Dardanelles.

Andrea Doria returned to Genoa with booty of 60.000 ducats, having helped to force the Ottomans abort a possible conquest of Hungary.

Andrea Doria defeated Lufti despite its numbers, outmaneuvering the Turks with his galleys despite absence of wind having becalmed his other ships, and losing only three galleys in the battle.

The fleet, with Andrea Doria sharing main command with Bazan the Elder, succeeded in taking Tunis and capturing Barbarossa's entire 42-ship fleet, although the corsair managed to escape.

Andrea Doria persecuted Barbarosa to Bona, which the Genoese stormed, but Barbarossa had fled and taken refuge in Algiers.

Shortly after, Babarossa attacked and sacked the Balearic Islands with 27 galleasses he gathered in Algiers, leading Andrea Doria to give him chase unsuccessfully with 30 galleys, with orders of Charles V to bring the Turk privateer dead or alive.

Andrea Doria captured a fleet of 10 Ottoman supply ships, after which he faced off with Ali Zelif and his 12 galleys near Paxos.

Andrea Doria took all of his vessels, while Zelif died in the battle.

In 1538, being given command of the Holy League, Andrea Doria sailed off with 80 Venetian galleys, 36 from the Vatican States, 30 from Spain, as well as 50 naos, with the goal to seek the encounter with Barbarossa's fleet and defeated him.

Andrea Doria tracked Barbarossa and his lieutenants, which included Sinan, Salah and Dragut or Turgut Reis, to the strait of Corinth, where he blockaded them.

In 1540, his nephew Giannettino Andrea Doria obtained a big victory in the Battle of Girolata, capturing Dragut, the most eminent Turkish captain other than Babarossa.

Andrea Doria had him as a galley slave in his flagship during four years.

Andrea Doria tried to warn the emperor of the terrible timing of the move, as it was autumn and the Mediterranean weather was dangerous, but he was not heeded, and the Genoese reluctantly accepted to participate anyways.

In 1542, the now allied French and Ottomans sacked Nice, being chased away by Andrea Doria, who captured four ships.

Again, Barbarossa and Bourbon conquered and sacked Nice, except by its citadel, and retreated with the arrival of Andrea Doria, who disembarked a land army led by Alfonso d'Avalos in Villefranche.

Andrea Doria was probably trying to gain the Ottomans' sympathy in the case one of his own relatives was captured, although he eventually repented his decision due to Dragut's many future successes.

Andrea Doria helped impeding the French from capitalizing on the chance, attacking the French positions in the coast.

However, his great wealth and power, as well as the arrogance of his nephew and heir Giannettino Andrea Doria, had made him many enemies, and in 1547 the Fieschi conspiracy to dislodge his family from power took place.

Giannettino was killed, but the conspirators were defeated, and Andrea Doria showed great vindictiveness in punishing them, seizing many of their fiefs for himself.

Andrea Doria was implicated in the murder of Pier Luigi Farnese, duke of Parma and Piacenza, who had helped Fieschi.

Andrea Doria reinforced the garrison the next year, after which he found and chased Turgut and his 20 galleys to Djerba, blockading the privateer with few ships in an inlet.

Andrea Doria was again summoned, and he spent two years on the island fighting the French with varying fortune.

Andrea Doria returned to Genoa for good in 1555, and being very old and infirm, he gave over the command of the galleys to his great-nephew Giovanni Andrea Doria, the son of Giannettino Doria, who conducted an expedition against Tripoli, but proved even more unsuccessful than his great-uncle had been at Algiers, barely escaping with his life after losing the Battle of Djerba against the Turkish fleet of Piyale Pasha and Turgut Reis.

Andrea Doria was considered the best admiral of his era, solely rivaled by his enemy Barbarossa.